Chongqing

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Population: 6.2 million

Rich in skyscrapers and natural resources, Chongqing is an immense inland city at the convergence of the Yangtze and Jialing Rivers. As the city mutates into a mega-city, the mood is one of inevitability. “This is the path every developed country has taken,” sociologist Tang Jun remarks. “To ask whether China wants urbanization is like asking whether a person needs to eat.”

As a result of such colossal urbanization, the environmental impacts are legion. With an economy rooted in river transportation, steel, smelting, and the manufacturing of automotive parts, factory smog builds a haze over the city that virtually never dissipates. Meanwhile, as newcomers arrive from all over the forgotten Chinese countryside, many of them “(trudge) through the city’s streets with lengths of stout bamboo looking for casual work as old-fashioned porters.” An old dream, it must seem.